In This Life

by Cora Brent

Colin awoke as he was shifted into my arms. “Hey, little man,” I said and he smiled. I moved him to an upright position, wondering if it was time for a bottle, but for the moment he seemed content to lay his head on my shoulder and try to grab my chunky turquoise necklace.

  “He loves you,” Jane said, a little wistfully.

  I didn’t point out that Colin was a baby and didn’t know how to love anyone. Babies required things. Comfort, feedings, clean diapers, affection. They didn’t yet have anything to offer in return.

  Kevin Reston materialized with a thick cardigan sweater. He carefully draped it over Jane’s shoulders.

  “You doing all right, honey?” he asked her with such tenderness my heart seized up a little. Jane hadn’t been lucky in many aspects of her life but she’d been lucky enough to find love. Many of us would search forever and only find pale imitations of the real thing.

  “I’m fine,” Jane said, though anyone who looked at her would have some doubt. There were dark circles under her eyes and her small frame looked slighter than ever. I doubted she was sleeping much. Or eating.

  “Mommy?” Emma piped up. “Can we go home now?”

  “Not yet, baby.”

  “I want to pet Bruno.”

  “He’s been jailed in the back bedroom,” Kevin said, referring to his mother’s wily terrier. He grinned at Emma. “Otherwise he’d be jumping on everyone and stealing all the food.”

  Emma considered and then changed tactics. “I want to go in the backyard.”

  “It’s raining, Ems,” I told her.

  She crossed her arms and looked unhappy. The days since the fire had been confusing for her.

  Kevin cleared his throat. “Actually, I was just outside and the rain seems to be letting up.” He winked at Emma. “What do you say? How about we rescue Bruno and let him run around the backyard?” Kevin glanced at me. “If it’s okay with your mom.”

  “That’s more than okay,” I said. “Thank you, Kevin.”

  Kevin tried to get Jane to accompany them to the backyard but she shook her head and pulled her sweater more securely around her body.

  After Emma bounced away, trailing Hawk Valley’s fire chief, Jane craned her neck around.

  “Where’s Nash?”

  I was about to admit I wasn’t sure he was even coming when the doorbell rang. Nash walked in looking slightly less sodden than he had in the cemetery. I had to admit, he wore the disheveled look well.

  “There he is,” Jane said and a slight smile curved her lips.

  Nash evaded Nancy’s attempt to towel him off and then stood awkwardly in the parlor doorway, surveying the quiet gathering. His gaze landed on Colin, who was still happily installed on my left shoulder. I wished I had a window into Nash Ryan’s head to see what he was thinking.

  “And Steve Brown is here,” Jane noticed and there was surprise in her voice. The lawyer was the kind of guy who kept to the corners of any room and was easy to miss. “I wonder why.”

  “Steve and Chris were good friends,” I told her gently, thinking she should be aware of the fact already. “They went to high school together.”

  Steve Brown approached Nash. He had the look of an archetypal attorney; slightly balding, slightly overweight and perpetually serious. He’d been practicing on the upper floor of a brick building on Garner Avenue for as long as I could remember and carried the legal secrets of many of Hawk Valley’s longstanding residents in his solemn, bespectacled head.

  “Oh,” Jane nodded. “Right. I forgot.”

  Through Steve’s mellow murmurs I picked out the words, “Tomorrow,” and “My office.”

  Nash seemed irritated. “Let’s just talk now,” he said, a little more loudly than necessary.

  Steve obviously didn’t like the idea but he sighed and led Nash out of the room, presumably to someplace more private.

  “What’s that about?” Jane wondered.

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  Of course that wasn’t true. I knew exactly why Chris’s friend and lawyer would have felt obliged to corner Nash only an hour after his father’s funeral. There wasn’t just the matter of the store, the house and property to deal with. Those things could wait. But a child couldn’t.

  Colin gurgled next to my ear and I rubbed his small back, feeling a surge of fierce maternal emotion. He wasn’t my child but I loved him. I would fight to protect him.

  In my head I began cataloguing everything I knew about Nash Ryan.

  Loner.

  Unpredictable.

  Detached.

  Wickedly hot.

  Unforgiving.

  It didn’t sound like a good recipe for a parent. There’d always been a tumultuous relationship between Nash and Chris. Still, Chris would have chosen to believe the best about his eldest son. Despite everything I’d ever heard about Nash Ryan, Chris and Heather must have had their reasons for assuming he would be the best guardian.

  My opinion was still up in the air. So far Nash hadn’t inspired much confidence where Colin was concerned.

  Jane opted to head out to the backyard after all. Colin began fussing after a few minutes so I decided to hunt down a bottle for him. Nancy likely had one ready to go in the fridge.

  There was a cozy rocking chair in the kitchen so I took a seat and let Colin eagerly latch onto the bottle. The window in front of me had a nice view of the backyard. Emma looked like she was having the time of her life, running around Nancy’s green grass with the hyper terrier chasing, fluffy tail sweeping back and forth excitedly. Jane was also out there now and Kevin wrapped a protective arm around her while I watched. Emma tossed a small red ball in the air and then squealed with delight when the dog leapt up and caught it. I smiled. It felt good to smile after so many sad days in a row.

  A shadow in the doorway made me turn my head and I stopped smiling. Nash stood there, appearing shocked and more than a bit pale. He looked at Colin, who was happily sucking away at his bottle and oblivious to being examined.

  “Do you want to hold him?” I asked. I expected Nash to refuse. I was right.

  “Not now,” he said.

  “Then when?” The question was sharp. I hadn’t meant for it to be. But not once had I seen Nash hold the baby.

  He answered the question with one of his own. “Where’s Jane?”

  I gestured to the window. “Out back.”

  Nash lowered his head and moved toward the back door.

  “He told you, didn’t he?” I blurted. “Steve told you about the will.”

  Nash looked at me. “You knew?”

  “Yes.” I tried to read his expression. “What are you going to do?”

  But Nash Ryan had already proven he didn’t answer questions he didn’t feel like answering.

  Maybe he didn’t know the answers yet.

  He left the kitchen and I watched through the window as he spoke to his aunt. Once he raked a hand through his dark hair and glanced toward the window. Our eyes met and a chill of unease traveled down my spine.

  All along I’d wondered, and feared, what Nash’s reaction would be when he learned he’d been named as the sole guardian of his baby brother.

  From the look on his face, it seemed he wasn’t handling the news well at all.

  “Me?” I’d croaked in disbelief. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

  Steve Brown, my father’s longtime friend and attorney, raised an eyebrow but tactfully confirmed that no, he was not in the habit of kidding around about child custody arrangements. My dad and Heather had actually named me as the sole guardian of my four month old brother.

  “You are also the executor of the estate,” Steve explained. “The largest assets are the house and the store, half of which are bound up in a trust for Colin but you will be empowered to make all financial decisions and-Nash?”

  I’d left him behind to babble about trusts and other bullshit on his own and sought out one of my few remaining relatives to explain a few things.

  “You seem unhappy,” Jane sa
id in the backyard of Nancy Reston’s house after I gave her a rundown of the conversation with Steve Brown.

  Kevin Reston kept his arm around my aunt and shot me a wary look. I couldn’t blame the guy. He remembered me as the asshole teenager I’d been back when he volunteered to help coach the football team at Hawk Valley High.

  “Just caught off guard,” I said, noticing that we weren’t the only ones in the backyard. A dog and a little girl were trampling Nancy’s flowers. I’d seen the girl around enough in the last few days to recognize her as Kathleen’s kid.

  I tried to sort out my thoughts. “This is a lot to take in.”

  That had to be the understatement of the millennium. The relationship between my father and me was messy. I’d always assumed he didn’t hold me in high regard. He’d told me so enough times. So why in the hell would he name me as Colin’s guardian? There had to be other options.

  Not my grandparents. They’d been dead for years. Heather’s mother was gone. Cancer or something. Her deadbeat father was still alive but I’d heard he was living in Idaho and muttered ‘stupid bitch’ when called with the news that his only daughter was dead. He didn’t even come to the funeral.

  And not Jane. She would have been the logical choice. If only she was stable. My aunt was a nice lady but when I was in high school she streaked naked through the Chicken Delight restaurant in nearby Boland while shrieking, “Stop the carnage! Save the chickens!” Jane wasn’t a caregiver. Jane was someone people took care of.

  Yet I still didn’t understand how I’d landed at the top of the list. Chris and Heather Ryan had lived in Hawk Valley all their lives. They couldn’t walk to the mailbox without tripping over a half dozen friends. At least a few of them must be steady folks with jobs and parental instincts.

  Kathleen, for example.

  When I’d found her in the kitchen a few minutes ago she’d looked like a breathing advertisement for tranquil motherhood, the kind of woman who might be cast in a commercial for vegan organic baby carrots or some shit.

  “You’ll get to stay here in town now,” Jane said and I saw the idea made her happy. She just took it for granted that I’d jump at the chance to abandon my old life and become an instant parent.

  Fuck.

  I ran a hand through my damp hair and tried to think. I’d never even changed a goddamn diaper.

  Then I looked up and saw Kathleen Doyle was staring at me through the kitchen window. In her arms my baby brother continued to happily suck the contents of his bottle. He didn’t know that he was an orphan. He didn’t know that the peaceful, happy childhood his parents had imagined for him was gone.

  I was a selfish person. Some might call me a dangerous one. But my heart wasn’t cold enough to feel nothing for the tiny human who was now my responsibility. My father and Heather knew what kind of man I was. If they’d left Colin in my care it was because they couldn’t think of a better option. And anyway, they must have figured this would never come to pass. I’d only been chosen as a precaution.

  “Nash?” Jane called because I’d abruptly turned and headed back through the door to the kitchen.

  Colin had finished his bottle and Kathleen was patting his back. She looked startled when I busted into the room again. I wasn’t sure what she thought of me and I didn’t care much. I had only one priority now and she wasn’t it.

  “Can I hold him now?” I asked.

  A surprised eyebrow popped up and she glanced at Colin as if she wanted to hear what he had to say about the question. Then she sighed and eased up out of the rocking chair.

  “Of course,” she said, reaching me in three graceful steps.

  I reached out but she pulled back and handed me a blanket.

  “You’re still wet from the rain so drape this over your chest. And wait, move your arms closer to your body. You’re holding a baby, not catching a ball.”

  Kathleen Doyle sure liked handing out orders but I was willing to accept a little direction. If she assumed I didn’t know what I was doing then she was right. I’d learn though. I’d learn everything there was to know.

  Colin produced a low mewl of protest when moved from the warm comfort of Kathleen’s arms to endure my awkward cradling. I thought he’d be heavier. He peered up at me and a wrinkle formed between his brows, like he was worried about why he’d been handed over to some unshaven stranger. The hair on his head was wispy and blonde, like his mother’s. I had a sudden flashback of Heather throwing her had back and laughing at something. It was something I’d said, although I couldn’t recall what. I wasn’t a funny guy.

  If babies were capable of doubt, there was definitely doubt in this kid’s eyes. He hadn’t gotten those eyes from Heather. They were bright blue, like my father’s. Like mine. His mouth suddenly puckered and I thought he might cry.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s me. It’s your big brother.”

  I tried to touch his cheek but he grabbed at my finger, curling his hand around it with more strength than I would have expected.

  “Don’t worry, Colin,” I said with confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  That was the truth. I really wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t take him back to a tiny one bedroom apartment beside the ocean. The life I’d led there was solitary and sometimes reckless and it was over. Colin’s parents had wanted him to grow up here and there was no one else to do the job.

  My life had just been irrevocably altered and I felt the need to tell someone about it. I looked up and caught Kathleen Doyle’s eyes staring at me.

  “I’ll be staying right here,” I told her, as if daring her to argue with me.

  She didn’t.

  Something wet touched my right ear.

  I might have slept through it if not for the sharp volley of impatient barking. When I tried to roll over Roxie jumped on my chest.

  “Gimme a break,” I muttered, knowing it had to be pretty damn early in the morning because I was still dead tired.

  Roxie smacked me with her paw. “Woof.”

  The dog wasn’t the only thing making noise. The plaintive wail of an infant reached my ears and for an instant I was confused about why there were crying baby sound effects echoing through my apartment.

  Then I remembered that they weren’t sound effects.

  The dog’s ears flattened and she whined as she glanced at the open bedroom door before jumping off the bed.

  “I’m up,” I groaned, blinking hard to clear my head a little. I was in my old bedroom, the one room in my dad’s house that had been untouched by renovation projects. Sports pennants and half naked women still decorated the walls, frozen in time as the dwelling of a teenage boy. The room was the same as it had been when I last lived here.

  All that had changed was absolutely everything else.

  Roxie barked again. The translation was either, “Get that damn kid to stop crying,” or, “Why are you sitting there scratching your dick instead of running to take care of the baby?”

  “I’m going,” I groaned, stifling a yawn.

  Colin’s room was on the other side of the second floor, right beside what had been the bedroom of his parents. So far I’d avoided looking in there. Even the sight of the closed door made me feel a little sick.

  I had hoped they died in their sleep, the smoke from the swift moving fire overtaking them before they had a chance to react. But I’d since learned that was not the case. My father and his wife had been found beside their pickup truck. Upon waking up to discover the world was on fire my dad must have grabbed Heather and made a run for the vehicle, hoping to escape. In that final moment they would have realized it was already too late. Their hands were still joined when the rescue crew discovered them.

  I paused at the doorway to Colin’s nursery. When I lived here the boxy little room with grey textured wallpaper had been used to store some inventory for my father’s store on Garner Avenue. Now it was an eruption of color with expressive painted animals on the walls amid happy scenes fille
d with balloons, smiling suns and rainbows. A teddy bear observed me from the corner rocking chair and a stuffed tiger slept at the foot of the crib where my brother paused for breath before belting out another cry.

  Roxie nudged my hand like she was trying to push me forward. I crept over to the crib slowly so I wouldn’t startle the kid. He didn’t know me yet. Only two days had passed since the funeral of his parents.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, attempting to sound soothing and self-assured. Instead my voice scraped out of my dry throat and sounded more like a growl.

  Colin stopped crying, opened his eyes to stare at me for a few heartbeats, and then erupted again, kicking his legs and waving his tiny fists with impressive four-month-old fury. Roxie made a sympathetic noise from the doorway. I sighed and scooped my hands under the baby’s writhing body while trying to crush a stab of unease.

  There wasn’t much that could scare me and I had a habit of running head first into challenges. Sometimes I even pursued the worst of them. But every time I picked Colin up there was this new and uninvited sense of fear trying to push its way to the front, sharpened by a very hostile thought.

  I have no fucking business being here.

  Colin was still squirming and twisting and I realized I should probably check his diaper. Sure enough, it was heavy and saturated. I had him on the changing table, trying to figure out which way the new diaper was supposed to go, when he let out a squawk, followed by a stream of piss that hit me square in the chest.

  “Good aim,” I muttered, managing to get the diaper secured on his body before wiping my chest off with a fist full of baby wipes.

  Once he was wearing a clean diaper Colin agreed to be snapped back up into his stretchy one piece. Somehow I did it wrong because I wound up with a front snap that had no match and made the whole outfit look lopsided. But hey, the kid was clean and no longer crying so I wasn’t going to make a thing out of it. I carried him to the kitchen to retrieve one of the last remaining bottles Kat Doyle had prepared. She’d given me two cans of powdered formula and a lot of very precise instructions that I immediately forgot because there was only so much information I could stuff into my head in the space of a few days. No big deal. I’d just add bottle preparation to the long list of things I’d need to figure out.